2025 promises a dynamic and challenging year for businesses as key antitrust cases set new precedent, private antitrust litigation will intensify, and legal battles evolve. In this first installment of the Wilson Sonsini Antitrust and Competition practice 2025 Year in Preview four-part series, we have compiled key antitrust litigation trends to watch for as you prepare for the year ahead, including:
- Anticipating tighter court scrutiny: courts have shown a growing willingness to reject proposed antitrust class action settlements, so companies should prepare for more rigorous examination of settlements and ensure that proposed remedies are proportional to avoid rejections.
- Assessing risk of strategic transactions: with an increasing number of merger challenges brought by private plaintiffs, merging businesses should carefully assess the risk of lawsuits, particularly in highly regulated sectors.
- Strengthening compliance and transparency: companies should enhance internal compliance programs to address potential antitrust violations and remain transparent about corrective action, especially actions targeting pricing, bundling, and anti-competitive behavior.
- Adopting strategic litigation planning: companies in sectors facing increasing antitrust scrutiny (e.g., telecom, life sciences, agriculture) should consider preemptive litigation strategies and monitor competitor activities to stay ahead of potential claims.
Platforms Under Pressure
In Big Tech and beyond, actions filed by private plaintiffs against platform businesses continue to persist and proliferate, setting the stage for major blockbuster trials and remedies. A series of new lawsuits accuse platforms of anticompetitive fees and illicit information-sharing practices—marking the beginning of legal battles that could reshape the digital landscape.
Apple’s continued battle against private litigants over their App Store fees warrants monitoring. Apple is fielding claims that it illegally restrained competition in App Store distribution and billing services. In February 2024, a federal judge certified a consumer class suing Apple for alleged monopolization of app distribution resulting in overcharges on iOS apps and in-app purchases. Apple is appealing the class certification, and the trial is scheduled for February 2026. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a nationwide injunction against Apple in Apple Inc. v. Epic Games Inc. The injunction, imposed in 2021, prevents Apple’s restrictions that block App Store developers from offering users other payment methods for app purchases. Apple is fighting to vacate or narrow this injunction at the district court.
Private plaintiffs are accusing other platforms of unlawfully restricting users’ actions and access to information. A new suit filed in September 2024 alleges that the electronic medical records company Epic Systems is foreclosing competition in the market for payer platforms, software platforms that allow health insurance providers to retrieve and analyze medical record information. Epic is allegedly forcing providers that use their medical records system to stop using competing payer platforms like Particle. Much like the Apple App Store case discussed above, these cases highlight litigation risk based on how platform operators impose rules on their users.
As these high-stakes legal battles unfold, businesses should remain vigilant, reassessing their platform practices and preparing for a potentially transformative shift in the regulatory and litigation landscape for 2025 and beyond.
District Courts Rejecting Settlements
In a few prominent and long-fought lawsuits, district courts have rejected proposed class action settlements. Courts are demanding more from defendants, aiming to right what they perceive as egregious wrongs and ensuring undesirable status quos are not entrenched. These decisions may indicate that federal courts are examining antitrust settlements under a stricter light.
In a dispute that began in 2015 over UFC fighters’ ability to negotiate promotional opportunities, a July 2024 decision in Le v. Zuffa rejected a $335 million settlement as being too low. At a hearing in June 2024, the presiding judge raised concerns about the adequacy of the settlement offer. The judge stated that he expected to see “life changing” money for the fighters after 10 years of litigation. The parties proposed a new settlement with an additional $40 million for the plaintiffs, and the judge preliminarily approved the amended settlement in October 2024.
Also, the judge overseeing a long-standing dispute over payment card fees charged to merchants rejected the parties’ proposed equitable relief class settlement in June 2024. The parties estimated the value of the settlement at $30 billion. Defendant banks must either improve their offer or face trial against the class. The defendants are already headed to trial against several large merchants who opted out of the monetary relief class, including Grubhub and Target.
In an extended action between chicken buyers and producers, direct purchasers of chicken settled with several producers accused of conspiring to increase prices for chicken by coordinating supply restrictions. The presiding judge approved each settlement except the settlement with Agri Stats, which the judge rejected because Agri Stats had not yet complied with the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).
Entering 2025, companies should bear in mind courts’ willingness to reject class action settlements. Parties should review a proposed class settlement offer with attention to the relief afforded and the litigation history. Careful compliance with CAFA and other applicable laws and rules is also vital to the success of a class settlement. In any event, companies should consider added risks to litigation with the increased scrutiny of class settlements.
Private Parties Threatening Mergers
Some of the largest mergers increasingly face scrutiny from private litigants, not just federal and state government agencies. The number of these actions has been rising steadily, and the coming administration change will not necessarily impact this trend. The following examples of ongoing challenges to mergers illustrate how private merger litigation can be markedly different from government actions (even when challenging the same transaction).
A private consumer class is suing T-Mobile over its 2020 merger with Sprint, alleging that the acquisition permitted all cell phone providers to raise prices. The merger closed after almost two years of scrutiny by federal agencies and a bench trial where the judge rejected several states’ challenges to the merger. In addition to damages, the proposed plaintiff class seeks to unwind the merger and create another major competitor in the market—a rarely sought remedy, even in government actions.
Private plaintiffs also sued this year to block the $1.9 billion merger of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. Like the T-Mobile-Sprint merger, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigated and permitted the merger to close, but private plaintiffs continued their litigation. The private action was later dismissed based on a lack of standing, but it shows again that actions by private parties can arise even after government scrutiny concludes.
Similarly, a proposed class of cardholders is challenging Capital One’s planned $35 billion purchase of the payment card network Discover. Consumers allege that the merger would significantly dampen competition among the remaining three independent payment processing networks as well as card-issuing banks like Capital One. The class argues this will, in turn, facilitate collusion among the remaining competitors in both markets and increase prices for consumers. The presiding judge stayed the litigation until government agencies (including the Federal Reserve and the DOJ) finish their reviews of the merger.
As private litigants play an increasingly prominent role in challenging mergers, even after initial clearance by regulatory bodies, businesses should factor in the risk of private lawsuits when planning strategic transactions, particularly in industries with high regulatory scrutiny. Private challenges might exceed the scope of challenges by regulatory bodies, or even challenge mergers cleared by regulators.
Algorithmic Pricing Continues to Invite Antitrust Scrutiny
Across various industries, more antitrust litigation is focused on algorithmic pricing—using software that recommends prices for companies’ products or services. These algorithms are created using data related to market demand, inventory levels, customer behavior, dynamic pricing, and other factors. Government and private plaintiffs have alleged that competitors’ use of the same algorithmic pricing software facilitates price-fixing and other anticompetitive conduct. In 2024, private plaintiffs filed several suits claiming competitors in the same market fixed prices using a shared algorithm.
For example, in September 2024 a Tennessee farmer sued several of the largest PVC pipe manufacturers. The farmer alleges that the Oil Price Information Service collects competitor data and publishes reports with benchmark pricing which allows PVC manufacturers to illegally coordinate on price.
Similarly, medical providers are suing MultiPlan, a provider of healthcare data and analytics, and several insurers. The plaintiffs allege that MultiPlan facilitates price coordination among insurers through a “repricing” tool that algorithmically determines a reimbursement rate to charge medical providers. According to the plaintiffs, the “repricing” tool masks coordinated price suppression among the insurers.
In December 2024, a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss in an action where renters accused property management companies and Yardi Systems of fixing rental prices using Yardi Systems’s pricing software. The plaintiffs allege that the management companies disclose to Yardi Systems commercially sensitive information that Yardi Systems’s software uses to recommend a price to each management company. By following the software’s recommendation, the plaintiffs claim that the management companies can charge above-market prices. The DOJ submitted a statement of interest in the action, which will continue into 2025.
Although actions based on algorithmic pricing are becoming increasingly more common, not every claim is successful. In September 2024, a federal judge in New Jersey dismissed an action against several Atlantic City hotel operators. A putative class of guests who stayed at the defendant hotels and casinos alleged that the defendants each used software sold by Cendyn Group. According to the plaintiffs, Cendyn’s software collects data from the hotels and recommends an “optimal” price for the hotels’ rooms, amounting to unlawful coordinated pricing.
Unpersuaded, the presiding judge granted the hotels’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint. The order declines to “infer a plausible price-fixing agreement between the Casino-Hotels from the mere fact that they all use the same pricing software.” Without more alleged as to how the software may have facilitated a conspiracy, the order continues, the complaint alleges “nothing more than a series of vertical relationships.” The plaintiffs have appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Companies should anticipate continued attention on algorithmic pricing into 2025 and beyond. Companies and industries that use shared pricing software should carefully monitor the risk of litigation based on these and similar claims.
Bundling Practices Under Fire
Bundling has long been a common practice among television providers and telecommunications companies, but recently, consumers and content distributors are using antitrust laws to push for unbundled packages. At the conclusion of a trial between DirecTV Sunday Ticket subscribers and the NFL, a California jury returned a $4.7 billion verdict for the subscribers. The plaintiffs alleged that the NFL colluded with DirecTV and each NFL team to raise the price of Sunday Ticket to artificially inflated prices by bundling together all out-of-market games. But in August 2024, the presiding judge vacated the award, finding that the jury’s decision was based on flawed evidence. The subscribers have appealed that decision.
While Sunday Ticket subscribers continue the action against Sunday Ticket, FuboTV secured an injunction preventing ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery from launching a joint “sports-first streaming business.” Fubo alleged that the defendants have maintained artificially inflated prices by bundling high-value sports channels, such as ESPN, with other low-demand channels. As a result, Fubo claimed that it paid more to license and distribute sports channels. Further, Fubo contended that the defendants’ proposed joint venture would permit the defendants to offer a sports-focused package free from bundling, an option unavailable to companies such as Fubo.
However, the parties abruptly settled the litigation in the first week of 2025, ending the lawsuit as well as the injunction blocking defendants’ joint venture. As part of the settlement, Disney entered into an agreement to combine its Hulu + Live TV business with FuboTV. Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery soon after scrapped their planned sports streaming service despite the injunction’s demise. Notwithstanding these developments, private plaintiffs want to continue the fight: A Fubo subscriber filed a proposed class action against Disney alleging that it unlawfully forces streaming services to bundle ESPN with other content to consumers’ detriment. It is not clear how these plaintiffs will overcome the well-established precedent accepting channel bundling as legal.
In August 2024, a patent-holding company and a putative class of consumers sued AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Deutsche Telekom, companies alleged to control 97 percent of the U.S. mobile phone market. The complaint in each action alleges that the defendants’ bundling of “Wi-Fi calling services with cellular services is an egregious violation of antitrust laws.” Rather than allow Wi-Fi calling as a standalone service, the complaint continues, the defendants tied Wi-Fi calling to other cellular services and maintained an artificially inflated price. The plaintiffs request, among other remedies, disgorgement of profits and compulsory unbundling of Wi-Fi calling from cellular services.
These actions exemplify some of the challenges to content bundling practices that have been common for years. Companies in television, telecoms, and other industries where bundling is common may want to review their own practices and consider potential litigation risk.
